


Take Two

by Ryah_Ignis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: End!verse, F/M, Major Character Death is /not/ among the main pairing, Mutual Pining, Sam Winchester Knows ASL, besides Eileen's canon death there is /no/ Saileen death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 21:18:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13579134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryah_Ignis/pseuds/Ryah_Ignis
Summary: When jumping through universes in an attempt to save his mother, Sam winds up in the End!verse in 2018, four years after Dean’s own visit.  Eileen Leahy is the runner for one of the few remaining human settlements who finds him after stepping through the portal.Sam tries not to let his unresolved feelings for his universe’s Eileen to bleed through, but he can’t help it–End!Eileen has all the same traits that made him fall for his version.  Meanwhile, Eileen tries not to fall for a man who will be gone in a week.





	1. Through the Portal

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, thank you to my lovely beta, burntblackfeathers over on tumblr. You always do such a lovely job!
> 
> And thank you of course to my amazing artist, winchesterchola. Your art is stunning! Take a look on [tumblr](http://winchesterchola.tumblr.com/tagged/take-two) or [livejournal](https://stargazingchola.livejournal.com/8099.html)

“Don’t move!”

Great. 

Very slowly, Sam turned to meet the threat, hands inching into the air. Once he’d completed the turn, his heart stuttered and stopped entirely before plunging into his stomach, hitting every individual rib on the way down.

Eileen Leahy glared at him suspiciously.  She wore a jacket several sizes too large and a scowl.  At the amazed look on his face, she tightened her grip on the gun aimed at his head.  Sam wiped his face of as much emotion as possible, but it wasn’t easy. Especially after the last time he’d seen her.

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

Sam just stared at her. “Why would I—”

She swung the pistol as hard as she could. Sam’s world went utterly dark.

He woke a few hours later, judging by the fact that the sun had almost completely sunk beneath the horizon, and Eileen had managed to make a fire. Sam lay utterly still, eyes only open in slits, listening as she bustled around the small campsite.

“I can tell you’re awake,” she said after a few minutes, “so you might as well sit up.”

He did as he was told, taking note of the handcuffs pinning his hands together.  Even with the bonds, Eileen had the gun by her side in case he tried anything.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, lifting his hands placatingly.

Eileen snorted. “Yeah.  Right.  Bet that’s what you told Detroit.”

Detroit?  Sam’s head ached, and it wasn’t just because of the apple sized knot at the base of his skull.

“My name’s Sam.”

He finger spelled out his name, his chest tightening at the familiar motions.  She almost smiled at the ASL, but then her defenses slammed back up.

“My brother and I are looking for our mother,” he said, signing the few words he could remember, hoping to set her at ease. They flowed easier than he’d been expecting.  “She disappeared through the same kind of portal that you saw me come through.”

Seeing as Eileen hadn’t even batted an eye at his entry and had threatened him with a gun, it seemed likely she was a hunter in this world, too.  Hopefully, she’d take his story in stride.

“Where’s your brother, then?”

Sam shrugged. He and Dean had dug up the Book of the Damned and fashioned a spell to open the rift again with Rowena’s help. When he’d stepped through it, he’d wound up in the wrong universe without Dean. She’d designed the spell to automatically re-open the rift in exactly a week, but that didn’t help him right now.

She eyed him warily. Then, “Eileen.”

Sam extended his right hand, the left dragged along with it. She took it for a brief handshake.

“I don’t get it. What’s with the pretense? I mean, I get the whole Prince of Lies thing, but that’s so pre-Apocalypse, don’t you think?”

He just looked at her. “Who do you think I am?”

Eileen burst into laughter. “Lucifer. You think I didn’t see the last CNN footage to come out of Detroit? Or the last copy of the _New York Times_?”

So this was the universe where he’d said yes to Lucifer. Sam tried not to think too hard about how, for Eileen at least, this world was actually better.

“I’m not him. You know what an angel banishing sigil looks like?”

It wasn’t common knowledge among—well—normal hunters, but the Eileen back home had been a bit of a lore nerd.  She’d fawned over his homemade card catalogue for the bunker’s library.  He hoped that this version was the same.

“Yeah. Why?”

Sam smiled. “Try to banish me.”

It took her a few minutes to paint the sigil correctly, but when she pressed it, nothing happened.

“Lucifer’s a fallen angel,” she said after a moment.

She fished around in one of the many pockets in her jacket. “You’re telling me you never once looked at those photos and thought ‘Wow, he looks an awful lot like me?’”

Sam shook his head. “I mean, he _is_ me.”

Eileen dropped the key she’d just retrieved and fumbled for her gun again.

“No, no, wait!  He’s me in another universe.”

Sam figured the whole story probably wouldn’t endear him to her, so he gave her the cliffnotes version.  He explained how the Lucifer in his universe had created a Nephilim strong enough to rip holes in the space-time continuum. How Mom had punched Lucifer into another dimension—she looked pretty impressed by that—and how he and Dean were looking for her.

“So in your world, you didn’t say yes?”

Sam went for the simple answer. “No.”

He half expected her to run off and leave him handcuffed by the fire, but as usual—or rather, as the other universe’s Eileen had done—she managed to surprise him.

“That’s actually kind of badass.”

She didn’t move to uncuff him, but Sam didn’t blame her. If someone had stumbled through a rift into his universe looking like, say, poor Nick, he’d be suspicious too.  In fact, a pair of handcuffs would have been the least of the guy’s worries.

“Thanks, I guess.”

It _had_ been kind of badass.  For some reason, the description made him smile.  He’d never thought about it like that before.

He opened his mouth to ask her if she was planning to let him go any time soon, but Eileen slapped her pointer finger over her mouth in a clear _shh._ Hastily, she started shoveling dirt over the fire.  Sam joined her, even though he wasn’t sure what she was doing and all he could do was kick his feet.  He must have made an absurd sight.

As soon as the fire died out, Eileen hurried over to his side.  The long curtain of her hair brushed his cheek as she leaned in to whisper in his ear. Sam’s throat tightened.

“Stay perfectly still.”

Thankfully, he remembered the sign for ‘what?’ though it was a little difficult to accomplish while cuffed. She shook her head minutely and went to work on his cuffs.

“Run.”

She linked her fingers with his and took off. Sam nearly fell flat on his face, his legs still half asleep, but he recovered. Despite his much longer legs, she more than made up the difference. She’d clearly done this many times before. While Sam kept smacking himself in the face with branches, she just kept plowing on, heedless of even the roots beneath their feet and the branches catching on her face.

Sam had a lot of questions, but it wasn’t as if he could ask them of a Deaf woman while she was facing away from him in the dark. So instead, he ran. By the time she slowed to a light jog, Sam was breathing harder than he’d like. He hadn’t exactly had time for his morning run for the last few weeks, and he hadn’t been sleeping well, either.

They finally emerged into a clearing with enough light for her to read his lips. He could see the faint trails of blood on her face from the branches.

“What was that?”

“Croats.”

When he continued to look blank, she sighed.

“Infected people. The Croatoan virus?  Do you not have that in your universe?”

At least his confusion had led to something. She finally accepted he wasn’t from her world.

“Um. I saw them, once. But it didn’t—it didn’t spread.”

Eileen snorted. “Lucky you. Think zombies, but faster. And smarter. And controlled by the devil.”

Oh. “That sounds like a fun combo.”

Once again, something crossed her face that Sam would have called a smile if it hadn’t come and gone so quickly. 

“How’d you know they were coming?”

Eileen reached into her shirt and tugged out the pendant hanging around her neck.

“It’s spelled to light up if there are Croats within a hundred yards of me. I’m a runner for one of the survivors’ communities around here, so I’m out alone a lot. Keeps them from sneaking up on me.

A pang. She’d had a similar feature on her phone. The camera flashed whenever she’d gotten a text message.

“We should be safe for now. They generally avoid wooded areas like this. I just shouldn’t have started the fire before. Get some rest.”

Sam glanced at her sideways. “Aren’t you tired?”

She smirked. “No offense, Sam, but I don’t think I trust you enough to let you take watch.”

Fair enough. Sam settled as comfortably on the ground as he could. Years of sleeping in really weird places made that easier than it would be for an average person. He kept his eyes half open, though, watching her.

Okay. So it was a little creepy. But what part of this situation wasn’t? She was dead, and here she wasn’t.

Sam flopped over to his other side.  His head hurt too much to think about this.


	2. Old Enemies

“You know ASL,” Eileen said, instead of a more traditional ‘good morning.’

Sam nodded. “I took a class in college. I’ve always been pretty good with languages, so I’d thought it would be a breeze. Turns out it was harder than I thought.”

He’d thought that it was English with gestures replacing the words, but it turned out to have a history and culture all its own.

“You’re pretty good for a classroom learner.”

It slipped out before he caught it. “I had a friend—she helped me remember some.”

Eileen raised her eyebrows. “Had?”

“She died.”

Before Eileen could apologize for not knowing about her alternate self’s death, Sam quickly changed the subject.

“Aren’t you tired?”

He’d been plenty surprised to wake up to an almost-finished sunrise with Eileen sitting exactly where she’d been when he’d fallen asleep. 

She got to her feet, stretching. Sam could hear several joints crack from where he was sitting, but she didn’t seem bothered by it.

“Not really. I’ve had some late nights.”

Without any further explanation, she started walking. Sam sprang up to follow her, ignoring the protest of a few muscles that hadn’t appreciated the night on the ground.  She walked briskly, apparently with some sort of destination in mind.

“Those rifts.” And with that, the glimpse of his universe’s Eileen faded and the soldier filled her place. “Do you have a plan for opening one again to get back?”

Sam couldn’t blame her for wanting one fewer mouth to feed.

“The spell is timed. It should reappear in exactly a week.”

As he said it out loud, Sam realized how stupid that plan sounded.  Of course, he and Dean had expected to step together into the same universe that Mom and Lucifer were in, not end up separated in an entirely different one. Sam hoped he was somewhere a bit more cheerful. Though with his brother’s luck, he seriously doubted it.

“You can stay with us until then.”

Sam didn’t know a whole lot about post-apocalypse life, but he was willing to bet Eileen was pretty important or well-respected if she could drag a random man into camp—a random man who looked like Lucifer at that.

“So what happened?” Sam asked as he fell into stride next to her. “I mean, I know about the Croatoan virus, but this is—this is really bad.”

She snorted. “That’s a word for it.  Did your world panic about the swine flu?”

It wasn’t as if Sam had been paying attention to the news at the time, but he would have had to have been living under a rock instead of in a string of increasingly shitty motel rooms to miss it. He nodded.

“People rushed to get vaccinated in this world, too. Except when they did, they got Croatoan instead. I suppose Lucifer’s demons must have managed to sneak the virus into the supply.  By the time the government worked out what was going on, it was too late. In the middle of all the chaos, people started going crazy and slaughtering their family and friends. I guess most people chalked it up to nervous breakdowns or something, but I could tell it was demons.”

Sam lifted a particularly leafy branch out of their way. He couldn’t have found his way back to the place where the portal had been if his life had depended on it. Which it sort of did. He hoped Eileen was following some sort of path he couldn’t see.

“I hooked up with a couple of hunters—they’re dead now, ambush—and learned that someone had opened Hell and unleashed Lucifer. That’s when the last major newspapers were released with his face. We tried this ritual to close the gates, but it didn’t work. After that, well. Most people are just trying to survive.”

She said it all completely matter of fact. That was the way things were. She eyed him curiously.

“And in your world, none of it happened.”

Sam shook his head. “We shoved Lucifer back in Hell. Things have—well, they haven’t exactly been quiet, but there hasn’t been anything quite apocalyptic. At least not in the traditional sense.”

He purposely avoided saying how exactly they’d locked Lucifer up, or that there had been several close shaves since Lucifer.  There wasn’t a point to bringing all that up.

“Must be nice.”

They fell into silence. Sam couldn’t help himself from watching her out of the corner of his eye. She moved the same way. He thought of the shredded body on a metal table and almost stopped in his tracks. If Eileen noticed his hesitation, she didn’t say anything.

A twig snapped.

This time, Sam came to a full halt, putting up an arm to step Eileen, too. The back of his neck prickled, though he couldn’t figure out why.

She signed, “What?”

Sam tilted his head in the sound’s direction. For a moment, no one breathed. Then—

“Sam Winchester. I didn’t think your lord ever let you out to play.’

In the disconcerting way demons always appeared, a very familiar face flashed into view.  Sam had to work not to let his jaw drop.

“Ruby?”

Apparently, this universe’s Dean hadn’t seen to stabbing her. She raised her eyebrows.

“I can’t believe you remember little old me. Never would have guessed, the way you never got me an audience with your lord.”

“Stop calling him that!” Sam snapped.

Suddenly, it was like being back in a motel room, in the midst of riding a high and already in search of another. Even all these years later, she knew which buttons to press.

She folded her arms. “All right, then. Who’s the new girlfriend? Is she as good a lay as me?”

Sam could practically see the questions forming in Eileen’s head.

“Eileen,” she said. Then, to Sam,” You know her?”

This was looking worse every second.

“Um. Sort of?”

Ruby pouted. “We used to be pretty good friends.”

She drew out the last word. Even if Eileen couldn’t hear it, she could hardly mistake the sentiment. Sam didn’t bother pointing out that it had been a long time ago. He went to say something else, but Ruby’s face grew fixed.

“Sam. Does he know where you are?”

When he didn’t say anything, the ghost of a smile mutated into a downright scary grin.  Sam took a half step back, urging Eileen behind him with a flick of his wrist. To his surprise, she followed.

“Ruby—”

“I can regain his trust,” Ruby said breathlessly.

“Ruby, don’t—”

Her head wrenched back and black smoke poured forth. Sam started on a backwards exorcism, but he couldn’t get the words out fast enough.

A chill ran down his spine.  Waiting a week wouldn’t be as easy as he thought.

* * *

“You really shouldn’t stay here with me,” Sam remarked as they hacked their way through a particularly dense area of woods.

He’d learned a long time ago that just wanting a person to stay wasn’t reason enough to keep them. Maybe if he’d remembered that lesson when dealing with the Eileen of his world and kept his distance, she might not have—

Eileen stopped in place. Sam almost walked straight into her. She spun around.  For one completely insane moment, Sam thought she was going to kiss him.

“Did you really save your world?”

She seized both of his shoulders despite the reach, looking intently into his eyes. Sam nodded.

“I did.”

She let him go. “I believe you. I’m not going to let you die out here.”

They didn’t speak for the next half hour it took them to arrive at what had probably once been a hunting cabin but Eileen explained was now a safe house halfway between her camp and the closest one nearby. It looked about ready to collapse. The warding seemed solid, though, and Sam could appreciate the supply stock.

“You should sleep,” Sam pointed out. “It’s been way too long.”

She flopped on the cot, keeping her eyes on him. The springs groaned underneath her.

“Why do you look at me like that?”

“Like what?”

She gestured wildly—for a moment, Sam thought it was ASL. “Like _that_.”

Sam tried to arrange his face into something more neutral. He hadn’t realized he was making a face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Whatever you say.”

Eileen had always had a way of keeping him on his toes. He never knew where he stood in a conversation until it was over. This Eileen was no different.

“Your mother. What’s she like?”

The words came rusty, like she wasn’t used to small talk. Then again, she probably wasn’t.  Sam bit on the inside of his cheek. She didn’t know she was asking a loaded question.

“We’re not—well, we’re not particularly close.”

Another eyebrow raise. “But you were willing to rip holes in time and space to get her back without knowing whether or not she’s alive.”

Sam shrugged. “She…left. I was a few months old. We didn’t reconnect until last year.  She’s not the motherly type, really. She’s a hunter.”

Eileen snorted. “Lilian. The woman who raised me. She was like that, too. Not exactly warm and fuzzy.”

Sam wasn’t sure how to react when she patted the cot next to her. Clearing his throat, Sam sat next to her, not too close.

“You don’t seem like the warm and fuzzy type, either.” He said after a minute.

“I haven’t been for a long time now.”

Sam didn’t want to pry, so he stayed quiet in the hope that she’d keep going. She did.

“Back when I was a hunter, everything made sense. If I did my job right, I saved people.  Now, no matter how hard I try, people still die.” She let out a little huff of a laugh. “It’s not always Croats or demons, either. Flu went through camp last winter, and we lost a quarter of our people. My friend Sara got pregnant and no one knew what to do when the baby came early.”

Sam didn’t quite know what to say to that, so again he said nothing. Eileen still didn’t look at him as she continued.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. Maybe it’s because you’ll be gone in a week.”

She reached beneath the cot and rummaged around inside before withdrawing with a box of Saltines. She tossed them at Sam.

“If you take first watch, you get to snack.”

Without another word, she burrowed into the cot’s sparse blankets and closed her eyes.

Sam hadn’t had anything to eat since she’d thrown a very stale pack of animal crackers from her backpack at him a few hours ago, so he made short work at his half of the crackers.  They were just as stale, but that didn’t matter much to his rumbling stomach.

He took the shotgun and trained his eyes and ears on the door. Behind him, Eileen dropped off to sleep, her breathing heavy and even.

His chest constricted again.

Now, more than ever, he wanted to get back to Dean and a universe he understood. Every solid breath behind him was a reminder of how _his_ Eileen _wasn’t_ breathing anymore. He’d meant what he’d said to Dean a year ago—he’d thought of something, of settling down with a hunter. And then, like the universe was giving its blessing, he’d met Eileen a few weeks later. Meeting this version wasn’t catharsis—it was just a twist of the knife.

Luckily, the threat of the Croats and demons on the other side of the door was enough to distract him from his thoughts. So much so that he jumped violently when Eileen tapped him on the shoulder.

“Get some rest,” she told him, jerking a thumb at the cot. “It’s my turn for crackers.”

Eyes suddenly heavy, Sam slipped underneath the covers. They were still cold where Eileen’s feet hadn’t reached.  It didn’t take him long to drift off to sleep.

He could tell he was dreaming the moment he opened his eyes. Bobby’s house looked just as it had pre-fire, down to the open book on the stovetop. Sam carefully maneuvered through the kitchen, wondering if this was one of those dreams where he’d wake up with the taste of smoke burning the back of his throat.

“It’s not.”

Sam froze.  His own voice sounded foreign to him.

“Lucifer.”

He’d never realized before how intimidating his own size could be. It took everything Sam had not to back away. Instead, he lifted his chin and stared himself down. He looked precisely as Sam had four or five years ago, a bug frozen in amber. He wore a pure white suit and a smirk.

“Hello, Sam.”

Sam wanted to deny him the satisfaction of a flinch, but he couldn’t.

“My. What did I do to you?”

Sam found his voice. “A couple thousand rounds in the Cage.”

Back _there,_ Lucifer had demanded honesty.  He couldn’t stop himself from giving it now, no matter how hard he tried.

Lucifer nodded. “A pity.  Don’t you think we’re much better together?”

He gestured down at the suit. Sam successfully suppressed a full-body shudder.

“What do you want?”

Another smile. “You.”

Sam’s hand convulsed at his side.  “You already have me.”

Lucifer carelessly waved Sam’s—his—hand. “True. But you’ve been boring ever since I killed Dean.”

Sam actually stumbled back a few steps at that, the bench at his back, hands outstretched as if that would stop him.

“No.”

“Snapped his neck. He didn’t even put up a fight. Didn’t want to hurt his precious Sammy.”

Sam unconsciously found the old scar on his palm and pressed down. Unsurprisingly, it did nothing.

“Not my universe’s Dean.”

Lucifer shook his head. “I haven’t had the pleasure, no.”

Sam’s shoulders slumped, broadcasting his relief far more clearly than he’d like.

“You’re not going to get me.”

“No?” Lucifer took another step forward, pinning Sam between him and the stove. “What about the girl?”

Sam’s mouth went dry. “I don’t even know her.”

“Ruby thought you seemed close.”

Sam shook his head, the lie struggling to override years of conditioning.

“Then it shouldn’t upset you when I snap her neck,” Lucifer said smoothly. “I’ll be seeing you, Sam. Perhaps sooner than you’d think.”

 


	3. Brave New World

Eileen slept in a cabin with five other women with plenty to dream about, so she’d learned how to identify a nightmare even without the benefit of hearing someone flop restlessly around.

She made her way over to the cot, the corner of her mouth twitching at the realization that Sam’s feet hung partially over the edge.

“Sam?”

He didn’t react well to her voice, so Eileen lowered herself on to the edge of the cot and placed her hands on his shoulders.

“Sam. Wake up.”

She knew better than to shake him—who knew what he was dreaming about—so instead she moved to massage the tenseness out of his shoulders. Inch by inch, he relaxed under her touch.

“Eileen.”

All of the panic drained out of his eyes. Almost as if he knew her, knew she wouldn’t hurt him. Eileen had the absurd thought she couldn’t tell what color his eyes were.

“Whatever you were dreaming of, it wasn’t real.”

He shook his head. “You’ve got to get out of here.  I only have to last another six days out here anyway.”

It felt unexpectedly like a punch to the gut. It had been so long since she’d met someone who didn’t look at her like a liability. She’d approached this like a job at first, but she’d actually been looking forward to these next few days.

“What?”

“Ruby went to Lucifer.  She told him I’m here.”

Eileen shook her head. “It was just a dream.”

He untangled his feet from the sheets and picked his jacket up from the ground. Eileen scrambled to her feet to block the door.

“There’s no such thing as just a dream. Not for me. He’s in my head.”

“How’d you avoid him in your world?”

Surely he’d had a method that worked. If he hadn’t, there was no way he would have been able to survive. Eileen had never attracted Lucifer’s attention herself, but she knew that the people who did never lasted long.

“Enochian warding on my ribs,” Sam explained. “But that won’t work here.  There’s about a million Rubys out there, and it’s not like they won’t recognize me.”

He made to walk towards the door again. This time, Eileen actually snatched his jacket to keep him in place.

“You won’t make it a day without me. Let me take you back to the camp. We’re warded.”

She wasn’t about to let him march righteously off into the woods to die. He’d saved a world, not unlike her own. That had to count for something.

“He said he’d snap your neck.”

Eileen tried and failed not to read into Lucifer threatening him with her. Sam seemed to realize her scrutiny; a faint blush rose in his cheeks. Huh.

“So?”

He just stared at her. “ _So_ he said he’d kill you.”

Eileen rolled her eyes. “It’s what he’s been trying to do for the last five years or so.  Hasn’t got me yet.”

Though Sam didn’t answer, she could tell that she’d won. She straightened his jacket.

“We’re about a half day out from camp if you can use those long legs of yours to keep up with me.”

To her relief, he followed dutifully behind her as they headed towards the rising sun.  It still amazed Eileen how bright it was sometimes. Without any pollution for the last seven-odd years, nature had steadily reclaimed its place. In a way, it was almost beautiful. Still, she’d kill for the sight of an operational bus coughing exhaust.

“You mentioned a brother?” Eileen asked, finally breaking their long silence when she stopped around midday for a rest.

“Dean,” Sam said, settling himself on the forest floor with his back to a particularly large oak. “I’m hoping he wound up in a nicer reality than this one. No offense.”

Eileen laughed—actually laughed for the first time in a very long time. “Can’t blame you for that. Are you close?”

She still didn’t understand why Sam would risk jumping through realities for a mother he wasn’t close to, but then, Lilian had had a strict no nonsense rule. Universe hopping was definitely nonsense. No matter how much Eileen had cared for her, she wouldn’t have searched.

“’Bout as close as you can get. We grew up in each other’s pockets.”

Eileen could tell from his voice that it hadn’t all been rainbows and butterflies, but he seemed serious.

“And you?” asked Sam, hesitating for only the slightest before plowing on. “Is there anyone?”

Eileen had a feeling he wasn’t asking if she had any siblings. “No boyfriend, if that’s what you’re asking me.”

He actually flushed, from the tips of his ears down to the little bit of his chest she could see through the gap of his shirt.

“I wasn’t asking that.”

Eileen snorted. “Sure you weren’t.”

The number of propositions she received had increased significantly since the apocalypse—people really clung to the end of the world line—but she didn’t think she’d gotten one quite like that lately.

They passed the rest of the time with Sam’s descriptions of the future—well, the future Eileen’s world never got to have, anyway.  She almost didn’t believe him when he said who was president.  (“Maybe we were the lucky universe,” Eileen said after he assured her he wasn’t joking.) She asked endless questions about the changes in pop culture. (“A new _Star Wars_ movie?  I missed that?”) Sam showed her how to work his phone, several years ahead of the one Eileen had had. (“It can read your thumb print?”)

They arrived about a half mile outside of camp a few hours into the afternoon.  Eileen glanced over at him. It was time to talk this through. 

“You’re going to have to be careful in there,” Eileen reminded him. “My people—we don’t take strangers lightly. Particularly not strangers who look like Lucifer.”

Sam reached up and ran his hand through his hair. “Think I should dye it?”

Eileen felt a swell of affection like she hadn’t in such a long time. “This isn’t funny.”

He grinned at her. “I trust you.”

It wasn’t like trust was in short supply here. All of the camp’s refugees—they still called themselves that, as if any of them would ever get to go home—had to trust each other implicitly or risk dying. But she still had to duck to hide her blush.

Luckily, Jacob was on guard duty. Eileen waved at him, so he bounded down from his perch on the top of the fence.

“Hey, Eileen!  You’re back!”

* * *

Of all the people Sam had expected to be guarding Eileen’s compound, an eleven-year-old boy was pretty far down the list.  The boy threw his arms around Eileen’s waist.  To Sam’s surprise, she ruffled his hair affectionately.

“Jake, this is Sam.”

He didn’t even blink at Sam’s appearance. Sam did a few calculations in his head.  Jake would have been what, six, five, when the apocalypse happened? So of course he wouldn’t recognize the Devil’s face.

“Hi, Sam! Are you staying?”

He shook his head. “Only for a little while.”

Already, Jake had moved on to another topic. “My mom’s really looking forward to the USB.”

The gate opened as Jacob led them towards the camp. It looked a little different than Sam had anticipated. A large satellite dish dominated the clearing. Beside it, jarringly, stood a large fire pit where a burly man sat stirring a pot.  He raised a hand in greeting to Eileen, who smiled at him. Sam tried not to read too much into that.

“You have a dish?”

Eileen nodded. “We have a very rudimentary internet. Only reaches about a quarter mile out, so I guess it’s more of a cloud?”

Sam’s tech knowledge extended about far enough to net him money in his and Dean’s account, so he couldn’t say which it was.

He opened his mouth to ask another question when the burly man from the campfire stormed over.

“Christo!”

When neither of them jumped, he settled into a defensive position, the knife he’d been using to chop—were those onions?—clutched in his fist.

Eileen’s good humor showed no sign of flagging. “You know that probably wouldn’t work on something possessing me right?  Ears not working and all?”

He just kept glaring. Eileen took a half step back so she was standing in front of Sam. It didn’t really do much, considering that she barely came up to his shoulders. But still. It was a nice gesture.

“Peter, this is Sam,” she said carefully, half raising her hands in the air. “I know what it looks like, but you’ll never in a million years guess how this happened.”

Peter looked dubious at best, but he didn’t do anything, so Sam counted it as a win.  Eileen gave him the quick version of what Sam had told her. Finally, Peter gave Sam an appraising once-over.

“Why is it always you when this stuff happens, Leahy?”

Eileen shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess. If anybody else asks, can you just tell them what I said?”

Peter muttered what Sam could only assume was a confirmation under his breath before he ambled back to his onions. 

The next person to approach them didn’t even spare a glance in Sam’s direction. “Did you get them?”

Eileen reached into one of her many pockets and pulled out a USB drive. She grinned as she handed over to the other woman, who punched the air at the sight of it.

“I might be able to get that heater you wanted operational with this.”

Eileen watched her go, a fond smile on her face. “That’s Elena, Jacob’s mom. Used to be an engineer before all of this. She’s part of the reason we have the dish operational. I got her the blueprints for a heater off of a settlement up north.”

“So you bring information back and forth?”

“We’re all a little more inclined to share when there’s not much left to start with.”

Sam couldn’t help himself from turning this way and that, marveling at the flurry of activity in the camp. Two little girls sat in a dusty patch of earth, making drawings in the dirt. Jacob charged by with a pack of other kids hard on his heels, kicking a worn-out soccer ball in front of him. Adults hurried back and forth; a small group sat tending to a vegetable garden while another walked by with shotguns slung over their shoulders.

“This is amazing,” Sam said in a low voice.

Eileen smiled, the same sort of soft affection she’d had for Jacob.

“We’re just trying to make it as long as we can. Let’s get you set up with a cot.”

 


	4. The Stream

“Listen, this isn’t what you think—”

Before Sam could get the words out, the woman lashed out and punched him directly in the nose.  Sam dropped to one knee with the force of it; something told him she’d been holding that one back for a very long time.  The lump on the back of his head where Eileen had taken him out throbbed.

He threw his hands up. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

“Likely story,” spat the man.

He aimed a kick at Sam’s ribs.  He doubled over instinctively, rolling to his side to avoid the next beating.  His breath snagged in his chest every time he took breath.  He groaned and allowed his eyes to slip shut for a second.

Mistake.  That just allowed the woman to get a kick in.

“You have to listen to me.” He tried again. “Just stop for a second so I can—”

Another kick.  Sam gave up on trying to convince them he wasn’t Lucifer.  He just curled up into a tighter ball and decided to endure.

“What the hell!”

The kicks stopped.  Sam risked glancing up.  He instantly wanted to close his eyes again.  Of course it was Eileen.  He’d been trying to avoid here these last few days.  It would be better for both of them in the long run.  He wouldn’t freak her out with some offhand comment about her life she hadn’t told him, and seeing her wouldn’t be like getting kicked in the chest again.

It seemed that even this universe hated him.

“Yeah, Eileen.  What the hell?”

The woman spoke, turning on Eileen with a quick flare of ASL.  Sam didn’t have to know what all the signs meant to pick up on intent.

“This is Sam.  He’s a friend, so could you stop beating the crap out of him, please?”

The man spoke up this time. “Are you stupid?  I know you saw that footage out of Detroit, Eileen, everyone did.  You know who he is.”

“I know who he looks like,” Eileen replied smoothly. “Tom.  Do you really think I’d let him into the camp without trying everything I know?  And besides that, do you really think Lucifer doesn’t have anything better to do with his time than to screw with us?”

Privately, Sam thought that this sounded exactly like something Lucifer would do just for the fun of it, but it would hardly help his case to say so.  Instead, he remained curled in the fetal position, trying to look as pathetic and un-demonic as possible.

“I—did you really think of everything?”

Eileen rolled her eyes. “How do you think I made it this far?  God.  Let him get up.”

She walked over to him and offered her hand.  Sam took it and staggered to his feet.  Aside from a bloody nose and a couple of bruised ribs, he wasn’t actually that hurt.

“Thanks.”

She smiled. “Don’t mention it.”

Sam watched her walk away, the lump in his throat hurting more than any of the bruises did.

* * *

Over the next two days, Eileen knew she should have just let any and all thoughts of Sam Winchester go. Despite the few misunderstandings in the beginning, he fit into the camp pretty well once they worked out he could recite his exorcisms forwards and backwards and shoot better than ninety percent of them. But Eileen Leahy had never been good at doing what she should.

She made sure they wound up on the same patrols and ate at the same time. Peter, who functioned as the camp’s schedule, rolled his eyes but followed her wishes.

For the life of her, Eileen couldn’t explain what it was that drew her to him. Maybe it was the way he fell in with Jacob’s little band, kicking around a soccer ball as if he were a kid, too. Or maybe it was the way he lingered over Elena’s shoulder, letting her explain each step of her work. Or maybe it was the way he managed to get even Peter to smile over his cooking.

Okay, so maybe she’d caught a few feelings. Something one of her cabin mates couldn’t help pointing out.

“If you look over there one more time, I’m going to accidentally chop off one of your fingers and I’m not even going to feel bad about it.”

Charlie’s face, though, was far from irritated. Eileen knew that she was delighted to learn that even she could get mushy at times.

“I’m not staring,” Eileen insisted, tearing her eyes off of Sam, who was chopping up vegetables with Peter.

Charlie just rolled her eyes. “Sure.”

They lapsed into silence.  Eileen deliberately moved herself so that her back was to Sam.  She couldn’t afford to be distracted. Eileen didn’t like to inflate her own importance, but the camp relied heavily on her job—getting information from place to place. And Eileen was the longest serving messenger in the camp.

“He’s looking at you,” Charlie said, tapping Eileen gently on the shoulder to get her attention.

When Eileen looked up, Sam smiled sheepishly and returned to his work.

“The two of you have the seed trade with Abel this afternoon, right?” Charlie smirked. “Funny how that keeps happening.”

Eileen shoved her. “Somebody had to show him the lay of the land.”

Yet another eye roll. “You said yourself that he’s only going to be here three more days.”

That stung, even though Eileen had been thinking it herself for the last few days. She wanted him to stay. Shooting Charlie an unusually sharp look, she returned to her work.

A few hours later found Eileen and Sam trekking through the woods again, this time with bundles of unseasonable snowshoes strapped to their backs. Abel had gotten snowed in last winter and didn’t want it to happen again.

“I like it here,” Sam commented as they crossed a slowly trickling stream.

He held out a hand to steady her as she stepped across, her shorter legs unable to cover the distance. Eileen pretended not to notice that he lingered longer than strictly necessary.

“I mean, minus the apocalypse. That sort of sucks. But everybody looking out for each other. The community here. It’s not like being a hunter.”

Eileen agreed.  Back when she’d been criss-crossing the country, she’d never gotten to feel close to the people she saved. In a weird way, this was more rewarding.

Impulsively, “You could stay.”

Sam turned his back on her for the first time while having a conversation. Sometimes people did it because they forgot she had to read their lips, but never Sam. She could tell it was deliberate. She let him.

“I can’t,” he said at last, facing her once more. “Mom, Dean…they’re out there somewhere. I’ve got to get them back.”

She hadn’t really expected anything different. “Yeah.  I get it. It’s just—”

He looked at her curiously, so she was forced to continue.

“You’re familiar.”

It sounded stupid when she said it out loud, but she couldn’t shake the sensation.  Even though they’d known each other for only four days, it seemed much longer.

“You have no idea.”

Somewhere along the line, they’d stopped walking. Eileen had to tilt her head back to see his face properly, they were so close.  Slowly, he raised his hand to cup her cheek, thumb moving absently to brush some of her hair out of her face.

“I’m not staying,” he told her.

“I’m not asking you to.”

Later, Eileen wouldn’t be able to pinpoint who exactly started the kiss. All she knew was the way he wrapped his free arm around her waist. She brought her hands up to grab at his hair. Considering that he hadn’t showered in nearly a week, it was surprisingly soft. Eileen smiled into the kiss. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of people who wanted this at the end of the world, but even so she hadn’t had something like this in so long.

He took a half step back. “Eileen. That, um. That can’t happen again.”

She tried not to be disappointed by that. “Yeah. No. Bad idea. I get it.”

She tried very hard not to notice how he reached up to brush his fingers over his lips when he thought she wasn’t looking.

 


	5. Friend or Foe?

“Eileen was supposed to check in a few hours ago via Abel’s radio,” Charlie said as she slid on to the bench beside Sam for breakfast.

Seeing her again had been another unexpected moment Sam hadn’t been ready for, but with Charlie being Charlie, she’d steamrolled straight past the awkwardness to being friends anyway.

“And she hasn’t?” Sam surmised, frowning. “Is the server down?”

Charlie shook her head. “Elena and I have checked over a dozen times now. Everything is working fine.”

Sam paused over his eggs, the bite he’d just taken suddenly sitting heavy in his stomach.

“Do you think she’s all right?”

Charlie bit her lip. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re having connectivity problems over in Abel?”

Sam set down his knife and fork. Before Charlie could say another word, he headed briskly for the cabin he shared with Peter and two other men.

“Taking a nap break?”

Peter looked up from the scarf he was knitting, eyebrows raised. Sam never could understand when Peter was serious and when he was joking.

“Eileen hasn’t called.”

He tugged his jacket over his shoulders, wrinkling his nose a little at the smell. He and Dean would have switched jackets or gone to small town laundromat long ago.

“Be careful out there.”

For once, Sam didn’t doubt Peter’s sincerity.

He raised his hand in farewell and jogged towards the exit of the camp.

* * *

Eileen’s head ached.

Eyes half closed, she took careful stock of her situation. A subtle wiggle of her left boot told her that the knife she usually kept stored in the lining wasn’t there any longer. Her wrists were crossed behind her back and secured with what felt like a particularly thick rope. She kept her breath steady and even, timed by the pulses in her skull.

A hand grasped her firmly by the chin and wrenched her face up. Eileen had the unhappy pleasure of reading Elena’s lips.

“What do you think this is, amateur hour?  I can tell when you’re awake.”

It didn’t take a genius to work out that this was the exact opposite of a rescue mission.  Eileen began tensing and un-tensing the muscles in her forearms, hoping to loosen the ropes.

“Christo,” she said, just to be sure.

Elena—or rather, the demon possessing Elena—let out a hiss as her hazel eyes flashed black.

“How long?”

She could at least keep the evil monologue going long enough to figure out how to get out of this.

“Three months,” Not-Elena said with a small smile. “It’s the next stage of the plan, see?  Figure out which humans are the most entertaining and keep them around.”

Eileen let her eyes fall closed. Jake had spent the last three months believing that his mother was alive and well.

A slap rang across Eileen’s face. Her head snapped to the side. Eileen suspected that a large red welt rose on her cheek.

“You’ll listen to me when I’m speaking.”

Eileen’s mouth quirked. “Can’t really do that.’

Not-Elena looked very much as if she’d like to slap her again, but she restrained herself.

“So,” Eileen said, trying and failing to keep her sarcasm in check, “am I considered entertaining? I can only assume because you tied me up instead of slitting my throat.”

“I’m personally more interested in your boyfriend than you. I recognized him the moment he arrived. Sam Winchester, the vessel. You know, he’s taller than I expected him to be.”

Eileen’s chest tightened. This whole ridiculous thing had happened because Not-Elena thought she had some sort of key to Sam’s heart. Great.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath. He’s going home soon.”

Why hadn’t she decided to ambush him then and there on his way back to the portal?

Elena seemed to read her mind. “I wasn’t sure I could take him in a fair fight, so I decided to play a little dirty.”

She picked up on Eileen’s attempts to wiggle her way loose of her bonds. Smiling gleefully, she reached out and grasped one of Eileen’s wrists in her fist.

“This is probably going to hurt.”

Eileen bit down hard on her tongue in her attempt to keep quiet. It just muffled her cry to a low moan as Elena snapped her wrist. If she got out of here alive, she was going to be in for a long road to recovery. No more pain medication for small things like broken wrists.

“Sorry about that,” Not-Elena said, “but I’d prefer if Sam was a little more distracted by you, so I think a little more bruising would do me some good.”

Eileen couldn’t hope to dodge the punch she knew was coming.

“You don’t even know he’ll come looking for me,” Eileen reminded her, trying to pry open the eye quickly swelling shut.

The demon snorted. “If he’s anything like the Sam Winchester of this universe, he’s already on his way.”

Somehow, Eileen couldn’t help but think she was right. Over the next hour or so, Not-Elena paced back and forth. For her part, Eileen wondered if she was reconsidering her choices; maybe going toe to toe with Sam was a poor one. The other half of her time she devoted to berating herself for not noticing one of her closest friends had been a demon for months. She didn’t want to give her a chance to monologue some more, so she could only imagine how she’d managed to avoid detection for so long. Maybe she’d tricked poor Jake into helping her.

Eileen wanted nothing more than to fall asleep, but she’d already been knocked unconscious once today. Who knew what kind of brain damage she’d sustained? Instead, she rubbed her chafed wrists against the ropes, half in the hopes of getting free and half in the hopes of keeping herself awake.

She could at least do that.

* * *

Sam’s tracking skills were a little bit rusty, but it didn’t take Davy Crocket to realize that whoever it was keeping Eileen from communicating wanted to be followed. Sam kept one hand on the angel blade stowed away in his jacket.

The undergrowth grew increasingly trampled as Sam went along so he had to be getting close.

“Sam!”

Elena burst out of the woods, face bet red and sweat beading on her forehead. “I thought I heard someone coming! Have you got a knife on you?”

Sam stared at her. “Are you—”

“It’s Eileen! She’s over there and she’s hurt—”

They burst into the clearing together. Eileen swayed, half conscious. Sam could only assume based on how she couldn’t seem to sit straight.

“Eileen!”

Sam belatedly realized that she couldn’t tell it was him behind her, seeing as she couldn’t hear him. Before he could rush over to check on her, Elena knelt beside her.

“Wow, you’re dumb,” she said, shaking her head.

She roughly shoved Eileen around to face him; Sam’s hands clenched into fists at his sides at the sight of her swollen eyes and bloody nose. When she saw him, she seemed to deflate.

“Go.”

He just stared at her.

“She’ll call Lucifer,” Eileen told him, voice unbelievably calm considering the circumstances. “You need to get out of here!”

Sam still didn’t move.

“You’re hiding from him,” the demon—she had to be a demon, he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid to believe the camp would be safe—said with a sharp tug on Eileen’s hair.  “Somehow, you’re hiding from him.  Undo the magic and I’ll let her go.”

Sam met Eileen’s eyes. She gave a small shake of her head.

“My ribs,” Sam said quietly. “Enochian warding.”

She shrugged. “Cool. Get rid of it.”

Eileen jerked in her hold. “He’d have to break his ribs!”

The demon kicked her in the small of her back. Eileen’s face twisted, and she fell silent.

“Not my problem, is it?”

Sam made eye contact with Eileen, shot off a quick prayer to whoever the hell was listening in this universe, and darted forward. At the same time, Eileen threw her weight in his direction, sending the demon rolling into him. Sam landed on top of her, allowing Eileen to grab the knife and stab her. Elena’s demon’s eyes and mouth glowed angry red.

“How—?”

Eileen stared down at the knife, mouth hanging half open.

“Demon killing knife.”

She groaned and flopped on the ground, clutching her wrist to her chest.

“Are you okay?”

Sam brushed light, searching fingers over her face to make sure that nothing had been too damaging. She hissed quietly when he touched a particularly purple bruise.

“I’ve been worse,” Eileen grunted, getting her feet underneath her.

Sam gripped her by the elbows as he helped her stand. She leaned heavily on him, gripping at his shirt with her uninjured hand. The other, she cradled at her side.

“We’re never going to make it back to camp like this,” Sam pointed out.

“We’ve got to get back there,” Eileen murmured, half focused. “The demons. They’re going to—going to kill them—”

She pointed limply in the direction of the camp before she crumpled sideways into him.  Sam pulled her close and headed towards where he thought the closest safe house was.

 

 


	6. Through the Portal (Again)

Eileen cracked her eyelids, careful to keep her breathing steady while she got her bearings so that whoever was watching wouldn’t realize she was awake.

She caught sight of a familiar orange jacket and let out a careful sigh.

“Hey. You feeling any better?”

She groaned. “My head hurts.”

Sam reached out, as if he wanted to brush the sweaty hair off of her forehead. He went to draw back and she stopped him. His face softened as he carded his fingers through her hair.

“Do you think this place is safe?”

Eileen nodded sluggishly.  “Only the runners know about it. Elena was an engineer, so she couldn’t have told her friends.”

The dots connected in her tired brain.

“We’ve got to get back!”

She lurched upright, nearly headbutting Sam directly in the nose in her haste.

“We need to warn them!  They don’t know—there could be others—”

Sam put a hand on her shoulder. “And if there are? How will you know one way or another?  You’d be walking straight into a death trap with a concussion.”

She swung her legs off of the cot, the rest of the safe house—safe outhouse, Charlie had once called it because of its size—coming into focus.

“That doesn’t matter. Elena said the demons were planning to decimate the human population again. They could all be dead by the time we get there!”

Sam scrubbed a hand over his face. “All right. Come on.”

He slung her uninjured arm over his shoulder and half lifted her to her feet.

“You carried me here?” Eileen asked as they began their painful trek back to the compound.

Sam nodded. Then, with a smirk. “I would’ve thought you’d be a little lighter considering this is the end of the world and all.”

She gave as good as she got. “Yeah, and I would have thought you’d be stronger if you could save your world.”

An ache in her chest entirely unrelated to the beating Not-Elena had given her rose up.  His world.  Because this one wasn’t for him.

“Do you need to rest?” Sam asked her after a few minutes in the camp’s direction.

Eileen, who had mostly stopped relying on him for support, except for during the few waves of dizziness she kept experiencing periodically, shook her head.

As they started approaching the camp, Eileen’s heart rate spiked, but she couldn’t tell why. Surely the demons in the camp—if there were others—hadn’t acted yet. 

Sam stiffened. “Stay here.  I don’t know if—”

And before Eileen could protest that whatever was in front of her she could handle, it hit her. The smell.

“No!”

Forgetting completely about the pain in her body, Eileen darted forward. Sam reached for her arm, but she wrenched herself free before he could get a firm enough grip. Ignoring the shouts she was sure were behind her, she ran up to the gate—still half-consumed in flames.

Sam caught up to her.

“You can’t go in there, understand?”

Eileen tried to fight her way out of his grip, but he just held her tighter. Accidental pressure against her wrist made her cry out.

“You can’t help them!”

“You don’t know that!”

But as the smoke grew thicker around them as the flames grew higher, she had to admit that he was right. The camp, and all the people in it, were gone. So instead of running into the fire, she found herself burying her face in the front of Sam’s jacket and clinging to him.

He responded by hugging back, bending so that he was almost folded over her.

“Hey,” he said, holding her out at arm’s length so she could read his lips. “We need to move in case they come back, okay?”

She nodded, lifting one hand to wipe at the disgusting combination of tears and snot off of her face.

“Let’s go.”

Some part of Eileen must have been expecting this, because once the initial shock wore off, she couldn’t bring herself to cry anymore. In this world, people died all the time. But for all of them to have died at once—

“You have to get back to the portal,” Eileen said, clearing her throat as she tried to sound rational.

They came to a rest in the undergrowth beneath a particularly large oak. Eileen’s stomach growled, but she ignored it.

He looked at her, so sympathetic that she almost started crying again. “What about you?  What are you going to do?”

She forced a smile. “What I’ve always done. Keep on keeping on. Join up with Abel. Hope they don’t decide my next settlement is the next target.”

Despite her best efforts, the smile wavered as her eyes filled with tears. She knew people in Abel, but they weren’t her family. Not like they were. Had been.

“I—” Sam started and stopped himself before continuing. “If you want. And no pressure.  But if you wanted you could come with me, back to my universe. The apocalypse isn’t happening back there.  At least, I don’t think so. It’s been a week since I’ve seen it, so…”

Eileen stared at him. Even an hour before, she would have had a dozen arguments ready to go, lined up one by one. She had Jacob, who needed a soccer buddy. Charlie, who needed someone to geek out with. Elena, who—well. It didn’t really matter now, did it?”

But now she didn’t have anything. It wasn’t like Eileen believed she could save the world. 

“I—”

It was still so hard to say. After all, she’d be leaving everything she’d ever known. But there was nothing left of that now.

* * *

Sam backpedaled furiously. He knew he wouldn’t take kindly to someone he’d met a week ago dragging him away from his universe. He didn’t want her to think he expected something out of it.

“You wouldn’t even have to see me again,” he said. “I mean—I’d like to see you again, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want you to think there are strings attached. If you want, you can run off to the other end of the planet and I’ll never contact you again.”

He tried not to feel so happy when she smiled again, considering the circumstances.

“Yes. I’ll come.” She squared her shoulders. “It—thank you.”

All the air whooshed out of his lungs as she made the same sign that had brought her into his life the first time.  Which reminded him.

“There’s something you need to know.”

He had difficulty meeting her eyes as he spoke.

“Back in my world, I met a woman.” He let out a choked-off little laugh. “She was working a case at a retirement home in Kansas. I stumbled on her hunt. She thought I was the monster, so she attacked me.”

Eileen stared at him blankly. “Why are you telling me this?”

Sam took a deep breath. “It was a banshee at the home. The woman had been hunting it for years because it had killed her parents.”

Eileen’s hands fell, wordless, to her sides.

“There’s another—you know another me?”

A look of hurt betrayal. Sam dropped his gaze.

“Your friend. Who knew ASL. That was—”

Sam wanted so badly to stop right there, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t let her make a decision like this without knowing everything.

“Me and my brother, we got too loud. The Men of Letters returned to America,” Sam continued, his throat closing over.  “They started going after hunters.”

Eileen regarded him calmly. Surely she had to know what was coming next.

“They sent a hellhound after Eileen Leahy,” Sam recalled, closing his eyes. “I got a letter a few days later. She’d wanted to stay with me. She knew she was being hunted. She just didn’t get there in time.”

Eileen just stared at him. “You knew me.”

Sam swallowed.  “I’m the reason you’re dead.”

He’d been carrying that thought around in his head for several months now. Voicing it didn’t make him feel any better. If he hadn’t met Eileen, or if he’d never contacted her again, she might have been further down on the Men of Letters’ hit list. He might have been able to take them out before she’d died.

“So you—when you saw me—”

Sam closed his eyes briefly. “I didn’t mean to get close to you here.  I didn’t. The first time I saw you, I recognized you, but I never meant to—”

He shouldn’t have opened his mouth until she was safe across the portal. Then, at the very least, he could have ensured her safety, even if she had never wanted to see him again.

“Never meant to what?”

Her voice didn’t so much as shake, but the hurt was evident in the lines of her face.

“I didn’t want to care about you because of her, the other Eileen. But as I spent the week with you, I couldn’t help it.”

Her mouth twisted. “You’re using me as a replacement for her.”

“No!” He massaged his temples. “I mean. Not intentionally. You have the same traits.  The way you treated Jacob.  The fact that you didn’t kill me on sight despite who I look like.”

He took in a deep breath, and while he did, Eileen butted in.

“Did you love her?”

He dropped his gaze. “No. But I could have. And somehow that stings worse.”

The thought crossed his mind that it could have been the same with her, but Sam fought it back. She deserved better than this.

“My offer stands,” Sam said, as evenly as he possibly could. “You don’t have to see me again, but you’ll have a better life there.  No more running from Croats every day of your life. You can go back to hunting if you like. Or you can do something totally different.”

She said nothing, but Sam thought he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. He shook his head violently.

“Never mind,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”

He spent the rest of their trek back out to where the portal had been cursing himself.  They could have left on good terms—he could have had his last memories of Eileen Leahy be of something other than a bruised and battered body on a slab in a morgue.

“Here we are,” Eileen said at long last.

Honestly, Sam probably wouldn’t have recognized the clearing. He’d staggered into it, immediately been blindsided by Eileen, and then knocked out. It didn’t do much for his memory.

“Look. I—thank you.”

He made the familiar motion with his hand, starting on his chin and extending out.  Despite herself, Eileen smiled at the sign.

“I would have died like six separate times this week if it wasn’t for you. And you could have just taken off back there instead of getting me to the portal.”

Eileen laughed, voice a little watery. “I would have been dead, too. Without you.”

Sam wanted nothing more than to beg her to come with him, but she’d made her choice and he had to respect that. He knew better than anyone else what it felt like when your autonomy was stripped from you.

“Where are you going to go?” he asked.

Eileen sighed. “I—I don’t know.”

As she spoke, the air around them grew charged, like a storm was coming. Both turned toward the slowly opening rift. It could only be open for a few seconds.  Sam took a step towards it—

“Wait!”

Eileen threw her arms around his neck, heedless of her twisted wrist. Sam’s hand came up almost automatically to pull her hair out of the way so he wouldn’t snag it.

“Do you mean it?” she asked, drawing back. “No strings attached?”

Sam nodded. “I really do.”

She took a deep breath. “Then yes. I’ll come with you.”

As Sam stepped back through the portal into his world, he felt a hand slip into his.

* * *

A month later, he got a text.

_How do you feel about a second chance?_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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